NZ stocks: Pre-Labour weekend blues as NZX dragged lower by top 50 stocks

6.05pm

Pre-Labour weekend blues hit the sharemarket today, dragged lower by two of its top stocks that lost ground, a broker said.

The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed down 12.98 points at 2789.83, while the NZSX-All capital index ended 3.87 points lower at 929.66.

Carter Holt Harvey, which has lost 25c in the last two sessions on a disappointing third quarter result and modest forest sale plans, was 2c higher at 210.

ASB Securities head of advisory Stephen Wright said CHH was the story of the day in what was a quiet session ahead of the long weekend.

"There was a wee bit of a recovery in CHH shares. I guess that just means the previous fall was a bit overdone," Mr Wright told NZPA today.

"It (CHH shares) will go higher, but it's still going to be a struggle for that company," he said.

"I would rather own a straight-out growth stock, but it (CHH shares) have gone back to being attractive at these levels."

Shares in Contact Energy were down 8c at 595, while those in Telecom were down 3c at 584.

Market turnover was $122.8 million, which included $27.8m from Telecom.

There were 162 stocks traded, including 47 rises and 60 falls.

Trade in Powerco again weighed heavily on today's turnover, accounting for $33.6m worth.

"Without Powerco it would have been a very quiet session," Mr Wright said.

Powerco shares closed unchanged at 212c.

Australian firm Prime Infrastructure's offer 215c for each Prime share has gained grudging approval from Finance Minister Michael Cullen.

An independent report found the offer to be of fair value and advised shareholders to register their stock overseas so they could be fully paid in cash.

Mr Wright: "That report basically recommended what everyone's already been doing. I guess they've had the benefit of seeing what the market has thought."

Moves among other top 50 stocks were modest.

"I just put that down to lack of anything new in the market, and long weekend blues," Mr Wright said.

Nuplex was down 5c at 520 after confirming earlier this week it had raised $56.6 million in a placement of 11.55 million shares at $4.90 each to institutional investors.

The money will partly fund Nuplex's acquisition of Dutch company Akzo Nobel's Coatings Resins business.

Shares in plastics firm Vertex Group fell 2c to 157 after earlier this week flagging an improved half year profit of about $2.5m, an increase of up to 15 per cent.

Steel & Tube gained 4c to 464 after shareholders on Wednesday voted in favour of upping total directors' fees by $80,000 to $310,000.

Tenon lost 4c to 216. The deadline for bids for its central North Island sawmills closed yesterday.

Other stocks to change hands included: AMP down 3c at 660, Austral Pacific up 7c at 462, 42 Below up 5c at 62, Dorchester up 7c at 290, Independent Newspapers down 10c at 505, Lion Nathan down 15c at 805, NZ Refining up 75c at 2700, Sky TV down 4c at 546, and The Warehouse up 1c at 402.

Overseas, the Dow Jones closed down 21.17 points at 9865.76, the Standard & Poor's 500 added 2.83 points at 1106.49 and the Nasdaq gained 20.65 points to 1953.62.

- NZPA